Market watch

March 18, 2019

Bitcoin golden cross confirmed on a daily chart as the shorter term (50 days) moving average line crossed above the longer term one (100 days). This is considered to be a strong bullish signal. Still, it is important to note that this time it was not supported by high volume and the more significant golden cross would be if the 50-day MA crosses over 200-day MA. At this point, it is very far from happening.

The 4-hour BTC/USD chart for the past week clearly shows an example of how the EMA ribbon starts to lose its significance when the market is moving sideways. The EMA ribbon needs an established trend to be useful support or resistance level indicator.

Is 2019 the year of altcoins?

This year kicked off with altcoins thriving while bitcoin holds still. Here’s a roundup of what has taken place so far this year:

The biggest (inorganic) growth of Enjin Coin. The coin reached over 560% against BTC within less than a month. Half of its growth took place based on the unconfirmed rumour about partnering with Samsung on the latest Galaxy S10 model before it rallied again when it was confirmed.

Binance Coin surged 150% against Bitcoin, making it one of the top performing altcoins of 2019.

Litecoin shows a 100% growth against USD and is about to complete a 50-day and 200-day moving average golden cross as well. Moreover, it is now forming an ascending triangle which is, of course, another bullish pattern.

Tron went on 87% of growth before going on a 30% correction.

EOS/USD reached a 75% growth rate in the last three months.

Bundestag hearing on DLT for financial services

So far, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) and the Federal Ministry of Finance have yet to establish necessary legal regulations that are required to unleash the full potential of blockchain technology. Here are the reasons and concerns that were mentioned by participants in the hearing:

Despite rapid technological development, there is a lack of research funding and expertise in the industry.

Some question whether there is a need to create new laws concerning blockchain technology in the first place.

High tension between the GDPR and blockchain technology.

The negative public perception towards blockchain technology, associating it with money laundering activities.

ETH: not a security?

First, in the original signed statement, Clayton claims, “A digital asset may be offered and sold initially as a security because it meets the definition of an investment contract, but that designation may change over time if the digital asset later is offered and sold in such a way that it will no longer meet that definition.” This statement is hardly a confirmation, but rather an expressed opinion about the potential possibility for tokens to lose it’s security status if the requirements are met.

Second, in this letter, Clayton actually does not specify Ethereum at all but speaks about tokens in general. Despite that fact, this whole ordeal is still considered to be a piece of bullish news, because this means that many ICOs that may have been securities would actually lose that status and therefore would not have to comply with securities regulation.

Did you know?

In order to prevent mistyping and sending funds to the wrong address, Bitcoin wallet addresses don’t contain the following characters: "0", "O", "l", or "I". This takes place thanks to an encoding scheme called Base58Check that removes those alphanumeric characters from generated Bitcoin addresses.

March 11, 2019

Last week BTC crossed the daily EMA ribbon twice. First, it went downside, but then bulls quickly took over and brought it back up the following day. For the third time, the price got rejected at the resistance level at around $3,870 and it seems like bitcoin does not have enough power to break through it yet.
In addition, we are approaching a bearish cross on the weekly Stochastic RSI, which historically indicates a major correction.

Binance Coin sees over 30% growth

With a 36% growth, BNB was the best performing coin last week. The coin has been performing really well since the end of 2018, despite the bear market. Binance coin jumped from 10th to 7th place on CoinMarketCap list and currently has a little over $2 million in market capitalization. One of the reasons that contributed to such a progressive growth is the recently launched decentralized Binance exchange testnet. Another reason is the Binance Launchpad, a token launch platform, that gained a lot of attention for listing hot ICOs like BitTorrent and Celer. Binance burns their coins quarterly and the last burn that took place at the beginning of this year was worth $9.4 million.

Sending Bitcoin over radio waves

The international Bitcoin lightning payment which was previously only sent via the internet is now possible to make using ham radio as well. Not only is this a very new method of bitcoin transaction but also, in certain cases, a useful one as it allows users to send bitcoin without internet access. That particular Lightning Network invoice transmission demonstrates that there is an alternative to internet transaction, which can be a subject of censorship (ie. China) or tight restriction (ie. North Korea).

Coinbase and Neutrino situation

Coinbase received a lot of criticism lately for acquiring Neutrino, the surveillance company known for selling users data to governments. Despite major concerns and discontent from users and the crypto community (check out #DeleteCoinbase on Twitter), Coinbase did not address the issue properly at first. However, as protestation grew, Brian Armstrong Coinbase CEO was forced to react and published a blog post explaining how they “had a gap in diligence process” and claiming that employees who previously worked in the controversial software firm Hacking Team will transition out of their new roles at Coinbase.

Bitcoin demand grows in Venezuela

The demand for Bitcoin in Venezuela has reached an all-time high of Bs. 25,16 billion, equivalent to $63 million, last week. Quick reminder: The Venezuelan bolívar has been the main currency in Venezuela since August 20, 2018. The currency was introduced as a solution to their previous currency hyperinflation problem, but failed to gain the trust of Venezuelans in the highly unstable situation in the country. Bitcoin became a safe haven for countries like Venezuela or Argentina that are currently experiencing a fiat currency crisis.

Source: coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/VES

March 4, 2019

The channel at around $4,000 level that previously served as a support area has now turned into resistance. The price has been tested twice last week, which means that the next time it reaches that limit we should see a major movement.

The price didn’t see a lot of action in the past week, so let’s have a look at the bigger picture.

On the longer term, it seems like a new bullish ascending triangle is forming. Price level around $4,300 provides a strong resistance line since the end of last year, while higher lows are establishing a support line.

Bitcoin shorts are currently at a very low level that historically indicates an upcoming increase in shorting. Last time it was at such a low level (in July 2018) followed by a 130% increase of shorts and led to a price drop from $7,445 to $6,488 within less than a month.

Ethereum hard fork

After a number of security-related delays, two anticipated upgrades, Constantinople and St. Petersburg, have been officially activated on the Ethereum network. Ethereum was supposed to hard fork earlier this year with Constantinople, however, after finding a significant flaw in the smart contract security, St. Petersburg was introduced to resolve the issue. Constantinople, being a maintenance and optimization update, provides speed, efficiency, energy and consumption improvements. However, it also affects Ethereum miners, who will now instead of three tokens per block will only receive two.

Enjin Coin sees over 200% growth

One coin that has been growing exponentially over the past week is Enjin Coin. The reason for that is an unconfirmed rumour that Enjin is going to back a blockchain wallet for Samsung's latest Galaxy S10 model and that led the price of the coin to rise over 200%.

What’s Enjin, you ask? Enjin is a gaming coin that allows users to create blockchain-based games to prevent fraud and make trading between games possible. They also provide wallets where users can hold several cryptocurrencies, which supposedly will be available on Samsung's new smartphone.

XRP on Coinbase Pro

XRP has finally been added to Coinbase Pro, which is something that has been expected and long-awaited. Considering that Ripple is one of the top 3 cryptocurrencies and has a strong community, it took a while for Coinbase to list XRP. Users can now trade XRP against USD, EUR and BTC.

New digital assets regulations in Russia

Vladimir Putin has approved a list of orders that include regulation of the digital economy, and it consists of following objectives:

Creation of federal legislation aimed at developing a digital economy

Determining the procedure for conducting civil-law transactions in the digital form

Creating a regulatory framework for digital financial assets

The attraction of financial resources using digital technologies

The deadline for the Russian government to create regulations is set to run out on 1 July 2019.

February 25, 2019

For those who follow bitcoin’s technical analysis the past week has carried quite a significant shift in pattern. Bitcoin broke through a key resistance level, bringing bullish sentiment to the market. The price has been staying above the daily EMA ribbon for most of the entire week and served as a support level for a coming crash on Sunday. In addition, the Relative Strength Index has also reached overbought territory and got corrected over the weekend.

Binance Chain Testnet and DEX launched

Binance’s own blockchain testnet called Binance chain and its new decentralized exchange Binance DEX are now live. Binance chain is claimed to have low latency, only one confirmation finality, low fees and a delegated proof of stake system. Currently, users can only buy and sell pegged coins on Binance DEX, which are redeemable for real tokens back over on the centralized exchange.

Among its new security features like Samsung’s Knox defense-grade security, Galaxy S10 will include “secure storage backed by hardware, which houses your private keys for blockchain-enabled mobile services”. As far as crypto adoption is concerned, Samsung has sold over 290 million smartphones in 2018. However, the major question remains whether Samsung will develop their own full-scale wallet or will they just provide the support for private key storage for developers to produce their own secure crypto wallets.

Tipping through Bitcoin Lightning Network on Twitter

Tippin.me is a browser extension (currently available only on Chrome and Firefox) that allows Twitter users to tip with Bitcoin through Lightning Network. The project is still in its beta phase and needs further improvements and development. Elizabeth Stark, the CEO of Lightning Labs, shared that she has already been tipped for a tweet.

Elon Musk’s view on crypto

Last week Elon Musk made a statement about crypto in his podcast Interview ARK Invest:
“Paper money is going away. And crypto is a far better way to transfer values than a piece of paper, that’s for sure.” Being one of the most influential people in the world (ranked #25 on the Forbes list). Elon’s opinion on Bitcoin and crypto definitely has some weight.

Google introduces new bitcoin keyboard currency symbol

Major tech companies like Google are starting to see the potential of Bitcoin and are increasingly implementing it into their products. Users can now see the Bitcoin symbol on their Google keyboard (only on iOS mobile devices) listed among major traditional currencies like the Dollar, Euro or Pound.

Although some of the news on their own are not exactly groundbreaking, in compilation they reflect a general sentiment of legitimizing crypto, spreading recognition and mass adoption along with making it easier for people to use Bitcoin.

February 18, 2019

The bitcoin price range has been trapped within a narrow channel moving slightly downward for most of the week, breaking out of it shortly on Sunday, before coming back to the channel again.

On a bigger picture, we have two falling wedges formed within a major triangle. With lower highs and higher low, we are approaching the tip, causing the bitcoin price to move sideways. The triangle provides us with major support and resistance lines since the end of last year. Accompanied by a decreasing volume, it brings us closer to a major breakout.

Despite the prolonged bear market, the fundamentals are going strong:

Two first U.S. Pension funds have dived into investing in crypto

Fairfax County Employees and Fairfax County Police pension plans have invested $40 million into Morgan Creek’s new blockchain venture fund. This shows that even in this bear market, institutional investors still have trust in the crypto industry, opening doors wider for the institutional market.

Nasdaq to add BLX and ELX

On February 25th, Nasdaq has announced its intention to add Bitcoin and Ethereum Indices (Bitcoin Liquid Index and Ethereum Liquid Index) to its Global Index Data Service. This will be made in partnership with Brave New Coin, a blockchain data and research company from New Zealand.

Twitter, Square and Lightning Labs

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, has been actively involved in the Bitcoin Lightning Network. He gained lots of attention for picking up the Lighting Torch on Twitter (#LNTrustChain). Dorsey is supposedly working with Lightning Labs to implement bitcoin’s Lightning Network into the Square Cash App.

Growth of Lightning Network nodes

Source: bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-nodes

The chart above demonstrates the rapid growth of Lightning Network Nodes with channels within a year. This correlates with the Network Capacity that has raised 39% in the past 30 days, which currently makes about 685 BTC or over $2 million (source: https://1ml.com/statistics)

Bitcoin ATM Installations Growth is at the all-time high

Source: coinatmradar.com/charts/growth/

As of February 15th, there are 4347 ATMs that have been installed worldwide, which makes it double the number of ATMs in December 2017 when BTC price was at its highest.